Whe he was a college student, Arne Sorenson’s father suggested he take a trip. Instead of backpacking across Europe, the preserve of many adventurous Americans at that time, the future boss of hotels group Marriott International found himself in the middle of battle-scarred Beirut.

“It was 1979 and there was a war going on,” says Sorenson, whose father was a Lutheran minister and had sent him on a church mission. “I was there for three months and had a spectacular experience but I say to my kids now, can you imagine being sent by your parents into a war zone?”

It isn’t the sort of tourism that he is trying to promote now. But the trip set his course for a life of travel — which might already have been in the genes. Born in Tokyo, where his father served as a missionary, Sorenson, whose roots are Norwegian, didn’t move to America until the age of seven. Now, as the boss of Marriott, he is regularly criss-crossing the globe, dropping in on this week’s World Travel & Tourism Council summit in Abu Dhabi en route from India and Sri Lanka.

How best to cater for the new-wave of global tourists coming from China and beyond was on the agenda there as the industry celebrates the milestone of more than one billion travellers crossing international borders for the first time last year. At last, Sorenson, who oversees an empire with 3800 properties in 74 countries under brands including Ritz-Carlton, Renaissance and Autograph, reports that tourist bosses are being taken seriously by politicians.

“They can see we are creating more jobs than many, many other industries and disproportionately heading towards a recovery,” he says from the back seat of his limousine as it speeds across the baking city. “Countries all around the world are really seeing tourism is something they should be taking advantage of and have as one of their growth planks.”

Abu Dhabi is a case in point, where billions of oil dollars are being ploughed into gleaming towers, yacht clubs, conference facilities and a new cultural quarter to compete for visitors with close neighbour Dubai as well as further afield. Will all these travellers still want to visit places such as London when they can marvel at all these new-world attractions?

“They will still go to the old world, absolutely they will. There is nothing like it. I’ve spent time in Dubai — it is a great destination, but it ain’t London,” says Sorenson, 54, dressed in pinstripes with neatly parted hair.

That said, Britain could do more to simplify its visa regime and he fears that air passenger duty, which rose again last week, is dissuading travellers.

“I think it is classic old world, short-term politics. We can tax our visitors because they don’t vote — and basically you can do that but you’ll have fewer visitors and therefore less income to tax,” he warns.

Marriott has a big presence in the capital, including flagship hotels such as the Grosvenor House in Park Lane, favourite host for corporate-awards dinners, the brand-new St Pancras Hotel which has opened behind Sir George Gilbert Scott’s famous Victorian façade and the sleek Bulgari Hotel in Knightsbridge, which Sorenson admits has divided opinion.

“Some customers find it too new and too brash and some are totally drawn to it. It’s a matter of taste.”

Coming soon, Marriott will open a new outlet called Edition after acquiring the freehold to the Berners Hotel in Fitzrovia. The concept is designed in partnership with boutique hotelier Ian Schrager, who set up legendary New York nightclub Studio 54. So London is clearly somewhere Sorenson wants to invest but he doesn’t detect that the city’s tourist trade has roared away any more than usual after last summer’s sports extravaganza which was meant to act as a giant marketing exercise.

“I’m not sure that a market such as London is really going to benefit longer term from the Olympics,” he says. “It is such a compelling destination anyway — and it was before.” But in a stagnant European market, it is only London and Paris which manage to hold their heads up and trade well when lesser locations such as Germany and the English regions suffer, he reports.

Sorenson last year became the first non-family member to head Marriott and only its third boss in an 85-year history, although Bill Marriott whose father founded the firm remains as chairman. A quarter of the shares are in family hands.

“The family dynamic is a huge advantage to us; it puts a human face on the company,” he says. “Not in a fancy way where Bill walks straight into the presidential suite and has everyone bowing to him. Instead he goes into the back of house and shakes the hand of every housekeeper he runs into.”

Observers say that despite a wide age gap, the pair have religion and family values in common. Marriott, who is a Mormon, first worked with Sorenson when the younger man was a lawyer helping to rescue the company which had run into debt troubles two decades ago and faced litigation from angry investors.

He helped to hive off the firm’s property assets into a separate company, creating today’s “asset light” Marriott, which houses operations and the brands but very few bricks and mortar. It was a defining moment that saved the company and the veteran didn’t forget those who impressed him at the time.

“Three years later, Bill said to me, why don’t you come out here? And I said, I’ll come out but not to be a lawyer.”

Sorenson scaled the corporate ladder, including a stint running European lodgings, and began to look like the heir apparent when he was made chief operating officer four years ago. But Marriott still holds onto family roots with three of his children in the company including one on the board.

The plan now is to carry on internationalising the company, including doubling its presence in the Arab region, something the brand-new, Venetian-style Ritz-Carlton Sorenson has just led a tour of will help to do. It is places like these, with views over the huge Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque and serenading by an opera singer at nightfall, that he hopes will keep well-heeled travellers spending. “Tourism is a deeper kind of consumption compared with, say, a luxury car,” he says. “People will always consume luxury goods but I think for leisure travel it’s a collective experience that is powerful for families and powerful for couples.”

His father, who preached a different kind of message and spent four months out of the country each year but always wrote home, would surely agree.

LIFE AND TIMES

CV MILESTONES

1983 US Court of Appeals clerk

1984 Latham & Watkins

1990 Latham & Watkins partner

1996 Marriott business development senior vice-president, later chief financial officer

2009 president and chief operating officer

2012 Marriott chief executive

PERSONAL LIFE

Married with four children. Despite the day job, he travels a lot with his family to relax. His children are already globetrotting, with one in Dublin and another in Paris. “My kids would say we visit a lot of hotels, but they love it.”

BEST ADVICE I'VE RECEIVED

“My dad was a complicated personality in some respects but incredibly hard-working. He showed all of us the importance of staying focused and doing your homework, being substantive in going after things.

“Bill Marriott taught me about listening first, but listening with an open-mindedness and curiosity which I find to be fairly rare. It is easy to see some chief executives of other companies in other industries sometimes shift into a place after a number of years where they are defending most of the things that have been implemented since they got there.”